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"...The church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth."
I Timothy 3:15
“Long ago I ceased to count heads. Truth is usually in the minority in this evil
world. I have faith in the Lord Jesus for myself, a faith burned into me as with
a hot iron. I thank God, what I believe I shall believe, even if I believe it alone.”
C.H.S., Oct.16, 1887 Sermons, 33.575.
“A chasm is opening between men who believe their Bibles and the men who are prepared
for an advance upon Scripture. The house is being robbed, its very walls are being
digged down, but the good people who are in bed are too fond of the warmth, and too
much afraid of getting broken heads, to go downstairs and meet the burglars... Inspiration
and speculation cannot abide in peace. Compromise there can be none. We cannot hold
the inspiration of the Word, and yet reject it; we cannot believe in the atonement
and deny it; we cannot hold doctrine of the fall and yet talk of the evolution of
spiritual life from human nature; we cannot recognize the punishment of the impenitent
and yet indulge the ‘larger hope.’ One way or the other we must go. Decision is the
virtue of the hour.”
C.H.S., Sept. 1887, The Sword and Trowel
“Believers in Christ’s atonement are now in declared union with those who make light
of it; believers in Holy Scripture are in confederacy with those who deny plenary
inspiration; those who hold evangelical doctrine are in open alliance with those
who call the fall a fable, who deny the personality of the Holy Ghost, who call justification
by faith immoral, and hold that there is another probation after death... Yes, we
have before us the wretched spectacle of professedly orthodox Christians publicly
avowing their union with those who deny the faith, and scarcely concealing their
contempt for those who cannot be guilty of such gross disloyalty to Christ. To be
very plain, we are unable to call these things Christian Unions, they begin to look
like Confederacies in Evil... It is our solemn conviction that where there can be
no real spiritual communion there should be no pretense of fellowship. Fellowship
with known and vital error is participation in sin.”
C.H.S., Nov. 1887, The Sword
and Trowel
“It is a great grief to me that hitherto many of our most honored friends in the
Baptist Union have, with strong determination, closed their eyes to serious divergencies
from truth. I doubt not that their motive has been in a measure laudable, for desired
to preserve peace, and hoped that errors, which they were forced to see, would be
removed as their friends advanced in years and knowledge. But at least even these
will, I trust, discover that the new views are not the old truth in better dress,
but deadly errors with which we can have no fellowship. I regard full-grown modern
thought as a totally new cult, having no more relation to Christianity than the mist
of the evening to the everlasting hills.”
“Let us see to it that we set forth our Lord Jesus Christ as the infallible Teacher,
through His inspired Word. I do not understand that loyalty to Christ which is accompanied
by indifference to His words. How can we reverence His person, if His own word, and
those of His apostles are treated with disrespect? Unless we receive Christ’s words,
we cannot receive Christ; for John saith, ‘He that knoweth God heareth us; he that
is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit
of error.’”
C.H.S., An All-Round Ministry, 373.
“The day will come when those who think they can repair a house which has no foundations
will see the wisdom of quitting it altogether. All along we have seen that to come
out from association with questionable doctrines is the only possible solution of
a difficulty which, however it may be denied, is not to be trifled with by those
who are conscious of its terrible reality.”
C.S.H., July 1889, The Sword and Trowel
“For Christians to be linked in association with ministers who do not preach the
gospel of Christ is to incur moral guilt. A union which can continue irrespective
of whether its member churches belong to a common faith is not fulfilling any scriptural
function. The preservation of a denominational association when it is powerless to
discipline heretics cannot be justified on the grounds of the preservation of ‘Christian
unity.’ It is error which breaks the unity of churches, and to remain in a denominational
alignment which condones error is to support schism.”
C.H.S., The Forgotten Spurgeon,
Murray, 164-165
“Separation from such as connive at fundamental error, or withhold the ‘Bread of
life’ from perishing souls, is not schism, but only what truth, and conscience, and
God require of all who would be found faithful.”
C.H.S., 1888, The Sword and Trowel,
127
“The argument I have heard hundreds of times when people have been urged to come
out of false positions and do the right. But what have you and I to do with maintaining
our influence and position at the expense of truth? It is never right to do a little
wrong to obtain the greatest possible good... Your duty is to do the right: consequences
are with God.”
C.H.S., 1868, Sermon at Metropolitan Tabernacle.
“Failure at a crucial moment may mar the entire outcome of a life. A man who has
enjoyed special light is made bold to follow in the way of the Lord, and is annointed
to guide others therein. He rises into a place of love and esteem among the godly,
and this promotes his advancement among men. What then?
The temptation comes to be careful of the position he has gained, and do nothing
to endanger it. The man, so lately a faithful man of God, compromises with worldlings,
and to quiet his own conscience invents a theory by which such compromises are justified
even commended. He receives the praise of the judicious; he has, in truth, gone over
to the enemy. The whole force of his former life now tells upon the wrong side...
To avoid such an end it becomes us ever to stand fast.”
C.H.S., 1888, The Sword and
Trowel
“Ah, my dear brethren! there are many that are deceived by this method of reasoning.
They remain where their conscience tells them they ought not to be, because, they
say, they are more useful than they would be if they went “without the camp.” This
is doing evil that good may come, and can never be tolerated by an enlightened conscience.
If an act of sin would increase my usefulness tenfold, I have no right to do it;
and if an act of righteousness would appear likely to destroy all my apparent usefulness,
I am yet to do it. It is yours and mine to do the right though the heavens fall,
and follow the command of Christ whatever the consequences may be. ‘That is strong
meat,’ do you say? Be strong men, then, & feed thereon....”
C.H.S., Sermons 1891,
37, 426.
“As soon as I saw or thought I saw that error had become firmly established, I did
not deliberate, but quitted the body at once. Since then my counsel has been ‘Come
out from among them.’ I have felt that no protest could be equal to that of separation.”
C.H.S., The Sword and Trowel
“One thing is clear to us, we cannot be expected to meet in any union which comprehends
those whose teachings on fundamental points is exactly the reverse of that which
we hold dear. Cost what it may to separate ourselves from those who separate themselves
from the truth of God is not alone our liberty but our duty.”
C.H.S., The Sword and
Trowel
“No lover of the Gospel can conceal from himself the fact that the days are evil.
We are willing to make a large discount from our apprehensions on the score of natural
timidity, the caution of age, and the weakness produced by pain; but yet seem to
be, and are rapidly tending downward. Read those newspapers which represent the Broad
School of Dissent, and ask yourself, How much further could they go? What doctrine
remains to be abandoned? What other truth to be the object of contempt? A new religion
has been initiated, which is no more Christianity than chalk is cheese, and this
religion, being destitute of moral honesty, palms itself as the old faith with slight
improvements, and on this plea usurps pulpits which were erected for Gospel preaching.
The Atonement is scouted, the inspiration of Scripture is derided, the Holy Ghost
is degraded to an influence, the punishment of sin is turned into fiction, and the
resurrection into a myth, and yet these enemies of our faith expect us to call them
brethren, and maintain a confederacy with them.”
C.H.S., Quoted by Russell H. Conwell
1892 in Life of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the World’s greatest Preacher
“It now becomes a serious question how far those who abide by the faith once delivered
to the saints should fraternize with those who have turned aside to another gospel.
Christian love has its claims, and divisions are to be shunned as grievous sins,
but how far are we justified in being in confederacy with those who are departing
from the truth? It is a difficult question to answer so as to keep the balances of
the duties.
For the present it behooves believers to be cautious, lest they lend their support
and countenance to the betrayers of the Lord. It is one thing to overleap all boundaries
of denominational restriction for the truth’s sake, this we hope all godly men will
do more. It is quite another policy which would urge us to subordinate the maintenance
of truth to denominational prosperity and unity. Numbers of easy-minded people wink
at error so long as it is committed by a clever man and a good-natured brother, who
has many fine points about him. Let each believer judge for himself; but, for our
part, we have put on a few fresh bolts to our door, and we have given orders to keep
the chain up, for under the color of begging the friendship of the servant, there
are those about who aim at robbing the MASTER.
We fear it is hopeless ever to form a society which can keep out men base enough to profess one thing and believe another; but it might be possible to make an informal alliance among all who hold the Christianity of their fathers. Little as they might be able do, they could at least protest, and as far as possible free themselves of that complicity which will be involved in a conspiracy of silence.”
C.H.S., 1887, The Sword and Trowel